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Thursday, January 7, 2016

CHEAPSKATE CHEAP STATES

HAPPY NEW YEAR, MR. RHODE ISLAND

"BAH HUMBUG! If you think I'm from Utah--then think, again!"

GUEST BLOG—By Dora Mekouar, Reporter, Voice of
America--In general,
Americans are generous people. So much so that 95 percent of U.S. households
donate to charity, contributing an average of $2,974 each year.See stats for givers vs. cheapos at end of this blog.

The United
States comes in second (behind Myanmar) in the World Giving Index, with
Americans giving more than $358 billion in 2014. Seventy-two percent of that
amount came from individual donors.

“Giving has
been part of our fiber since the beginning of our country,” Aggie Sweeney, vice
chairperson of the Giving USA Foundation, told us back in June 2015. “Americans
have always seen giving as an important part of what makes our communities
work. In America, we’ve had a belief of taking care of our own and wanting to
be able not to only have government take care of things, but to invest in what
we feel is really important.”

Originally posted 1-6-16

But some
states are more generous than others when it comes to donating time and/or
money.

Residents in
Utah, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Oklahoma are among the most giving
Americans. Of all the U.S. states, residents in those states donate the highest
percentage of their income.

States that
give the lowest donated income include Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine and
New Jersey, with New Hampshire coming in dead last.

To determine
the most generous states, financial website WalletHub assessed the volunteer
rate, percentage of the population who donated time and money, and the median
contribution to charity.

When
assessing all of the above factors, Utah remains the most generous state, while
the least charitable state is Rhode Island. Rhode Islanders apparently give the
lowest percentage of their income while also donating the least amount of their
time.